The courts at Arthur Ashe stadium in Flushing are much quieter since Juan Martin del Potro and Kim Clijsters won their U.S. Tennis Association titles last month, but the ball may still be in play between the Tennis Channel and Cablevision Systems Corporation following an exhibition match that got as action packed as the Grand Slam tournament itself.
Ken Solomon, the channel’s chief executive, served James Dolan, who owns Cablevision, when he plastered anti-Cablevision ads across the New York Metropolitan area—some of which were still spotted on the Long Island Railroad trains as recently as last week—in the most high-profile duel since the Dolans butted heads with the YES Network in 2003. Dolan blocked with a strong backhand when the company sidestepped a pricing dispute by joining a national cable co-operative that gave them access to the Tennis Channel when negotiations were in sudden death shortly before the tournament began Aug. 31. But Newsday wound up caught in the crossfire while who won remains unclear as Cablevision got the network nine days after the US Open ended, once the network no longer held up the signal on a technicality. And the channel hopes for a call in their favor, but that still would not help many local fans who missed out on the network’s “round-the-clock coverage” of the biggest tennis event in New York.
“These actions have industry-wide ramifications and should be addressed by the appropriate regulatory authorities,” the Tennis Channel said in a statement Sept. 24, after Cablevision started receiving the network. The Bethpage-based company got access to the signal through the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC), and that way could charge the price it wants: $5.95 per month through the iO Sports Pak sports tier featuring 16 networks.
The tennis network cried foul and is reviewing its options while the cable co-op, which was formed for small cable companies to better negotiate with big networks, said that’s just how the game is played.
“Cable companies join us for both cost and operational efficiencies, but each member joins for their own specific reasons,” says Dan Mulvenon, vice president for corporate communications at the Kansas-based NCTC. He says two other large cable carriers have joined in recent years, bringing the co-op to a combined total of 26 million subscribers. Cablevision has more than 3 million customers in the Tri-State area.
The volley between cable and the network had kicked into high gear when the Tennis Channel tried to take out an advertisement in Cablevision-owned Newsday—a tennis racket smashing a cable box that read, “Thanks for Nothing Cablevision” and suggested switching to another cable provider—and was rejected. The network shot back by placing the ads in other daily newspapers and dispatching a mobile billboard with the same ad on it to the cable company’s headquarters, which reportedly outraged Dolan.
At about the same time Newsday began to stop accepting ads from Verizon, Cablevision’s main competition. Once the resulting ad dispute blew up, critics questioned if it was a sign that Long Island’s lone daily newspaper has been ethically compromised since the cable company purchased it from Tribune Company in a deal valued at $650 million last year.
“The Tennis Channel problem is really the start of something we’re starting to see more and more,” says Jaci Clement, head of the Fair Media Council, a Long Island media watchdog. “It’s really a very transparent look at the issues that are raised when one company has so much power in the market,” she says, adding that she has concern that Newsday and News12, which is also owned by Cablevision, are being consolidated.
“The larger issue is, are they turning away stories that we need to know,” Clement says.
“It’s ridiculous,” says Newsday spokeswoman Deidra Parish Williams in reaction to Clement’s assertion about the paper’s editorial independence. “Newsday, like every other media company, uses discretion to accept or reject advertising.”
Cablevision spokesman Jim Maiella declined to answer questions about the fallout from the Tennis Channel ordeal.
The tennis war concluded the same week that Timothy Knight stepped down as publisher, who was followed out the door by three high-level advertising, circulation and marketing managers nine days later. Knight was replaced by Terry Jimenez, publisher of Cablevision-owned am New York, a free New York City daily newspaper.
“The purchase of Newsday has further complicated Cablevision’s life in the sense that they need to be careful of even the perception of editorial interference,” says Howard Schneider, a former Newsday editor who is the founding dean of the School of Journalism at Stony Brook University, which received funding from Cablevision. He adds that Cablevision “has every right to protect its economic self interest” by rejecting the ads.
